I love the sound of a deadline whooshing past. I’m looking at the birds outside, when I should be concentrating on a task. I’m easily distracted. I’ve been wondering what that slight sense of breathless unpreparedness brings. In many ways I’ve come to recognise that it’s perfect for all that we face right now.
Angus was hit really hard by intense storms over the winter. Our people and landscapes have been deeply affected by a series of record breaking storms and floods. So many of us were entirely unprepared.
However much you’ve read the climate change blurb, there’s nothing quite like sitting in a beach front café in Montrose and watching your coffee shake as the highest tide of the decade relentlessly crashes into the sea defences.
The impacts of these events will live with so many of us for years to come. This week we begin one of our most important tasks, to come out of these events. We will be collecting our first storm stories. Hearing and seeing the images and stories from our community so we can share the experience and understand the real impact of what happened here.
It might seem like these events are bigger than we can handle, but Angus Climate Hub is all about keeping it real and practical. I firmly believe all the skills we need to shape a better future for all of us already exist in Angus (and everywhere else). Somebody out there in your community has the energy, skills and inspiration to reshape things for the better, (thankfully). That’s why our community networks are so vital.
So here’s a bit of what our communities are coming up with in Angus. – Climate Ready Forests – at Dronley Community Woodland -a practical way to build resilience in our woods (and people) and keep the trees standing in a changing climate.
Future Football – The Angus Climate hub is hosted by Montrose Community Trust, which brings us a fantastic family of connections with community football trusts across Angus. This year we are kicking off our nature and sustainability in football in all sorts of interesting ways.
There are over 70 community groups taking climate action in Angus. We are committed to working with any of them to deliver for them. Wherever you are, whatever you bring to your community of climate action, you have what it takes, you are welcome and needed more than ever. Just in case nobody told you lately, let me thank you for all that you do. If you would like to come and see anything happening in Angus, please get in touch. So here’s to looking out the window, watching the birds and bringing all that you have to make a difference where you live.
Visit the (very beautiful!) Angus Climate Hub website here, where you can also sign up to their newsletter.